


Balancing Act

by IronBitch35730 (Ayita35730)



Series: City of Shadows [2]
Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-09
Updated: 2020-05-09
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:21:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24085774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ayita35730/pseuds/IronBitch35730
Summary: Selina Kyle's take on Tabitha Galavan, Barbara Kean and Butch Gilzean.A part of a series of relationships on Gotham.
Relationships: Harvey Bullock & Jim Gordon, Oswald Cobblepot/Edward Nygma, Oswald Cobblepot/Jim Gordon, Oswald Cobblepot/Victor Zsasz, Selina Kyle/Bruce Wayne, Tabitha Galavan & Barbara Kean & Selina Kyle, Tabitha Galavan & Selina Kyle, Tabitha Galavan/Barbara Kean, Tabitha Galavan/Butch Gilzean, Tabitha is a mess, Tabitha needs to make a choice im sorry, and Selina Kyle knows it, but shes a hot put together one, hes in other parts, hes not in this but it needs to be said, jim is a really a fuckin dummy, like i get open relationships but not with them, relationship studies and scenes - Relationship, these three? a mess
Series: City of Shadows [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1737664
Kudos: 16





	Balancing Act

**Author's Note:**

> Hello Everyone! The first part of this series is from Fish's point of view! none need to be read in order but that one is probably better than this one tbh--still, these three were in my head.

Selina watches vodka drip from a broken glass.

She thinks about love.

She assumes it’s vodka anyway. She’s seen so many bottles around lately it’s impossible to tell without drinking it herself (and that’s never been her poison). But, she supposes it doesn’t really matter what it is, specifically. It will all eventually numb the pain, if you try hard enough. 

And hell, is Tabitha  _ trying. _

During the day, you’d be hard-pressed to tell the difference in her. Barbara always said Tabitha was  _ almost _ the perfect soldier. She doesn’t panic, she’s brutally efficient, but she’s too emotional. That’s not exactly right though. It’s more...specific than that. 

When they’re working, Tabitha won’t blink twice at the mention of Butch or Barbara. She’s stone faced and indifferent to the thought of them when braving the world, but she knows better. It’s become a ritual of sorts, for Tabitha to wait until she thinks Selina’s left for the evening and then pour herself a glass.

Then another.

Then another. 

As if drinking herself blind will resurrect either of them. Sometimes she lashes out, throws her glass against the wall (like tonight) and screams at dead people until the sun rises. She talks as if they can hear her—she screams at Barbara and rants to Butch. Sometimes she acts as if she expects them to answer her. (Hell one of these nights, they just might. You never know in Gotham). 

She refuses to mourn either of them, as if that will make them any less dead. As if she doesn’t know that even if they were alive they’d still be tearing her apart. She couldn’t break herself free of the quicksand her love for them turned into. Tabitha is strong, powerful and fierce but she  _ loves  _ and she loves too deeply. She let her love and loyality for her brother pull her into war with Penguin, let her sentiment for that  _ stupid  _ girl Silver (Selina still cannot believe Bruce fell for her act) put her own survival at risk. She nearly died on both of their accounts. 

Then she found herself tangled up with Butch and Barbara and it tore her in two.

They represented two parts of Tabitha, two paths that Selina can easily relate to. The same two things push her toward and pull her away from Bruce Wayne. The desire to have something warm, something good and stable—vs the desire to live up to your potential.

Butch, despite his own criminality, was as close to normal as Tabitha would ever get. He brought out something in her: a lightness, a kindness. Brought out someone Tabitha had never been able to  _ be  _ before, someone Butch taught her to be. Selina had always liked Butch. In her opinion he was the sanest crook in the godforsaken city. He loved Tabitha so genuinely and she loved him too, enough to get her hand cut off to save him. Enough to brave Penguin’s wrath to save him. Enough to risk her life and freedom for him. He brought out something selfless and pure inside of her, something that didn’t belong in their world. 

Selina thinks of herself, standing on that rooftop with Bruce smiling at her in that dumb way of his and she understands. 

Barbara—an entirely different story. That relationship Selina can understand in theory, but not completely. They were just on a different level. She thinks of them like magnets. If one moved, the other followed—but without any warning one could flip and they’d suddenly repel each other violently. They were volatile but they were a formidable team. They constantly challenged each other to be better, to reach higher, to be  _ more _ . They were complementary kinds of crazy and it made them  _ dangerous. _

For Tabitha, Butch was the sane part of herself she’d hidden away—Barbara was the thrill of power, the brutal nature they shared. 

Selina feels for her. She does—she knows what it is to lose people. But with how smart Tabitha is, Selina cannot for the life of her how the other woman convinced herself that the situation  _ wouldn’t _ end terribly. Butch hated Barbara by the end, it was obvious—he resented that his one and only wasn’t  _ his _ , only. He wanted that idealized relationship with Tabitha, one that he’d never get but never stop trying for. He didn’t understand Tabitha’s draw to Barbara, how they pushed each other.

The balancing act was bound to end in ruin. Everyone knew how unraveled Barbara really was, how deeply her fear of rejection ran. She’d never accept that Tabby could love her and Butch both, never accept sharing the one person she felt she had left. Her paranoia had her constantly looking over her shoulder, waiting for betrayal—a self fulling prophecy. Barbara’s lust for power and her fear of losing Tabitha are exactly what lost her both.

Exactly what lost her life. 

Selina can’t say she wasn’t angry when Tabitha confessed about the murder. Barbara was a friend. A crazy, dangerous friend, but she had always tried to lend a hand Selina’s way, sometimes without anything in return. Most of the time with  _ something  _ in return, but then again this is Gotham. Barbara was kind to Selina and she couldn’t help but bristle when Tabitha told her she was dead. Still, she can’t hate Tabitha.  She almost tried, for old times sake, but  Selina knows enough about complications to know some things she can’t involve herself in. Whatever happened between the three of them that day, that’s something she cannot act on. It was just between the three of them. Intimate, personal. Not to mention it’s obvious Tabitha suffers for it, regardless of how indifferent she attempts to act about their deaths (Barbara’s especially).

She killed her lover to avenge her lover and now she doesn’t sleep at night.

Selina chuckles a bit at the morbid thought, and wonders absently if Nygma had the same problem after he ‘killed’ Penguin. And what Jim Gordon thought about  _ that  _ mess. She never thought him as the jealous type, but he _ does _ have a tendency to murder people that try and take out Penguin. 

Tabitha mumbles from where she’s fallen asleep on the couch and Selina sighs. She looks around from the broom and rolls her eyes at herself. She plays into the delusion just as much as Tabitha at this point. Tabby will know that she saw all this and neither of them will talk about it. They’ll keep their thoughts to themselves and Selina won’t invade her personal life.

She’ll watch as Tabitha mourns, or as she doesn’t. Maybe one of both of them will return (even death cannot be trusted) and she won’t have to mourn at all. Selina just hopes if that’s the case that Tabitha will choose before Gotham chooses for her. 

Days later, they’ll step into an elegant room to see Barbara looking alive and well, looking at Tabby in  _ that _ way. Selina will hide a smile and it will be a bittersweet thing—she’s come to like Tabitha, but she cannot save the other woman from this and things will never end in peace between the three of them. 

Part of the thrill of the act is the threat of the fall. 


End file.
